Exterminate All The Brutes

Exterminate All the Brutes

Lindqvist, Sven

Literature & Fiction

Peter Smith Pub Inc

A unique study of Europe's history in Africa and an examination of Europe's racism toward the "dark continent" traces the writings of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians, written in the form of a travel diary.

Exterminate All the Brutes: A Modern Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness

History

Africa

New Pr

"Exterminate All the Brutes" is a unique study of Europe's history in Africa, written in the form of a travel diary. Sven Lindqvist takes us on a daring intellectual trip to "the heart of the darkness" of the European mind and its attitude toward the "Dark Continent." Like Edward Said's Orientalism, Lindqvist's book traces the legacy of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward. Lindqvist also examines the roots of European genocide, setting Conrad's Heart of Darkness in context and helping us to understand the most terrifying of Conrad's lines: "Exterminate all the brutes."

"Exterminate All the Brutes" is a searching examination of Europe’s dark history in Africa and the origins of genocide. Using Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as his point of departure, Sven Lindqvist takes us on a haunting tour through the colonial past, interwoven with a modern-day travelogue. Retracing the steps of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward, the author exposes the roots of genocide in Africa via his own journey through the Saharan desert. As Lindqvist shows, fantasies not merely of white superiority but of actual extermination"cleansing" the earth of the so-called lesser racesdeeply informed European colonialism and racist ideology that ultimately culminated in Europe’s own Holocaust. Chosen as one of the Best Books of 1998 by the New Internationalist, which called it "a beautifully written integration of criticism, cultural history, and travel writing, underpinned by a passion for social justice," "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a powerful reckoning with the past and an indispensable contribution to the literature of colonial Africa and European genocide.

"Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide

The New Press

In 1981, Stephen Jay Gould exposed the bad science behind nineteenth-century American studies that “proved” that Anglo-Saxons were superior because they had larger brains. In The Skull Measurer’s Mistake, Sven Lindqvist tells the story of Friedrich Tiedemann, the nineteenth-century German doctor who dared to speak out against such racist science when it was first practiced.
Often the history of racism is reduced to the study of racists. Less well known are the stories of those who argued and fought against prejudice and persecution. In this unique book, Sven Lindqvist, Swedish author of internationally acclaimed books on Africa, China, and Latin America, profiles more than twenty nineteenth-century men and women who, while not themselves victims of racism, went against the temper of the time to expose the many faces of prejudice.
Along with Tiedemann’s story, The Skull Measurer’s Mistake recounts the antiracist efforts of Benjamin Franklin, Helen Hunt, Joseph Conrad, Alexis de Tocqueville, and others whose names have been forgotten. Well-documented and rich in anecdote, Lindqvist’s book shows how racist arguments emerged—and reemerged—over time. At the book’s core is Lindqvist’s belief that knowledge of past debates about racism can help us defeat it now.

The Skull Measurer’s Mistake: And Other Portraits of Men and Women Who Spoke Out Against Racism

Historical Study & Educational Resources

The author of Exterminate All the Brutes serves up an innovative history of aerial bombardment from the early twentieth century to the high-tech weaponry of the modern military.

A History of Bombing

Military

An original work, written with a moral passion that is uncommon.

Americas

Long before the word “genocide” was coined, the British invasion of Australia had annihilated approximately nine-tenths of the continent’s original population of Aborigines. The creation of white Australia depended upon the legal fiction of “terra nullius”—no man’s land—the claim that Aboriginal lands were inhabited by people who would soon die out and who could be helped on the way to extinction if they lingered.
 Sven Lindqvist, the widely acclaimed and internationally renowned author of “Exterminate All the Brutes” and A History of Bombing, brings his original sensibility to bear as he travels 7,000 miles through Australia in search of places where belief in the rights of the white man and the annihilation of the “lower races” were put into practice. While Australia continues to reckon with its violent past—echoed in the United States’ treatment of Native Americans and Europe’s colonization of other continents—Lindqvist evokes a shocking history in which young boys were kidnapped to dive for pearls, then whipped and abandoned when the bends ruined them for work; “half-caste” children were taken from their mothers; and natives were misdiagnosed with STDs, put in neck irons, and sent to internment camps on remote islands. Lindqvist also recalls the work of ethnologists who brought their own prejudices to bear in studying Aborigines as primitives close to the origins of civilization, later inspiring Freud and Durkheim. At the same time he describes a beautiful and strange land, sacred to the native people who had inhabited it for centuries and celebrated in a long tradition of richly symbolic art.
 A movingly idiosyncratic travelogue and a powerful act of historical excavation, Terra Nullius is the illuminating and disturbing story of how “no man’s land” became the province of the white man.

Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land

Sven Lindqvist is one of our most original writers on race, colonialism, and genocide, and his signature approachuniting travelogues with powerful acts of historical excavationrenders his books devastating and unforgettable. Now, for the first time, Lindqvist’s most beloved works are available in one beautiful and affordable volume with a new introduction by Adam Hochschild. The Dead Do Not Die includes the full unabridged text of "Exterminate All the Brutes", called "a book of stunning range and near genius" by David Levering Lewis. In this work, Lindqvist uses Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a point of departure for a haunting tour through the colonial past, retracing the steps of Europeans in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward and thus exposing the roots of genocide via his own journey through the Saharan desert. The full text of Terra Nullius is also included, for which Lindqvist traveled 7,000 miles through Australia in search of the lands the British had claimed as their own because it was inhabited by "lower races," the native Aboriginesnearly nine-tenths of whom were annihilated by whites. The shocking story of how "no man’s land" became the province of the white man was called "the most original work on Australia and its treatment of Aboriginals I have ever read . . . marvelous" by Phillip Knightley, author of Australia.

The Dead Do Not Die: "Exterminate All the Brutes" and Terra Nullius

Enlightening stories of courageous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century men and women who defied the racial prejudices of their communities In this unique book, Sven Lindqvist, author of the acclaimed "Exterminate All the Brutes," shows why the history of antiracist work must not be limited only to the study of racists. Here we have the inspiring stories of more than twenty eighteenth- and nineteenth-century men and women who struggled and fought against ignorance and animus, often going against the times to expose the many facets of racism and hate. Well-documented and rich in anecdote, The Skull Measurer's Mistake recounts the antiracist efforts of Benjamin Franklin, Helen Hunt, Joseph Conrad, and Alexis de Tocqueville, as well as others whose names are perhaps forgotten but whose important work lives on. Lindqvist--whose writing, Adam Hochschild has said, "leaves you changed"--shows how racist arguments emerged, and reemerged, over time. At a time when conversations about racial justice are occurring in every corner of society, knowledge of past antiracists can help us defeat racism today.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lindqvist, Sven. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lindqvist, Sven

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lindqvist, Sven. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Exterminate All the Brutes

Exterminate All the Brutes: A Modern Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness

Exterminate All the Brutes

"Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide

The Skull Measurer’s Mistake: And Other Portraits of Men and Women Who Spoke Out Against Racism

A History of Bombing

A History of Bombing

Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land

The Dead Do Not Die: "Exterminate All the Brutes" and Terra Nullius

The Skull Measurer’s Mistake: And Other Portraits of Men and Women Who Spoke Out Against Racism